If I Fix You by Abigail Johnson | Book Review
1.29.2017
BLURB: When sixteen-year-old Jill Whitaker’s mom walks out—with a sticky note as a goodbye—only Jill knows the real reason she’s gone. But how can she tell her father? Jill can hardly believe the truth herself.
Suddenly, the girl who likes to fix things—cars, relationships, romances, people—is all broken up. Used to be, her best friend, tall, blond and hot flirt Sean Addison, could make her smile in seconds. But not anymore. They don’t even talk.
With nothing making sense, Jill tries to pick up the pieces of her life. But when a new guy moves in next door, intense, seriously cute, but with scars—on the inside and out—that he thinks don’t show, Jill finds herself trying to make things better for Daniel. But over one long, hot Arizona summer, she realizes she can’t fix anyone’s life until she fixes her own. And she knows just where to start... (Goodreads).
Some things are easy to fix, but are some things meant to stay broken?
Title: If I Fix You
Author: Abigail Johnson
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance
Goodreads rating: 3.88/5
Pages: 304
Publication: October 25th 2016 by Harlequin Teen
Source: Book Depository | Amazon | Google Books
Reading format: E-book
Review type: Non-spoilery
Author: Abigail Johnson
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance
Goodreads rating: 3.88/5
Pages: 304
Publication: October 25th 2016 by Harlequin Teen
Source: Book Depository | Amazon | Google Books
Reading format: E-book
Review type: Non-spoilery
review
⭐⭐⭐.85
It took me a week to read this book because I was super busy. I thought I would get used to the busyness of being a high school student when I reach form 5, but I was hella wrong. It was only 304 pages but it took me so long to finish it, even when the plot was intriguing to me.
The synopsis made the story sounds cliche, but as the story unfolds, that assumption is slowly proven to be wrong. It's not totally original, but not absolutely cliché either. You can guess some things to happen but there are some other things that you don't really expect to happen but happen. The story revolves around broken trust and healing from that through connecting with others and the deepest part of yourself. It kept me reading even when I had a lot of other work to do.
The characters are very likeable. For my past few reads, I've been hating the main girl character in those books, but I love Jill because she handles every problem she has maturely, for a 16-year-old girl. I love her girl best friend too. At first, there are some things that I hate about her, but as I grew to know the characters better, my love for her grew too. For the love interests, I love-hate both Daniel and Sean. I don't exactly hate Daniel, it's just something seemed off about him. Like, there's something still hidden about him even after the story ended. And as for Sean, I just hated him and even by the end of the book, I still didn't like him.
Savage, vicious, relentless. How do you survive something like that? How do you survive being rejected over and over again by the person you tried to protect?
It surprised me that this was only the author's book debut! It's really a good debut for contemporary YA and she can only go up from here.
My 16th Birthday | What Happened
1.14.2017
Last 11th January, I had my 16th birthday yeay yeay yeay 🙌 It was a blast, my 16th birthday is the best birthday I ever had, thanks to my very beloved precious family and my beloved friends, batch-mates. Last year's birthday was very worse for me and that made me hate my last years of school even more, but this year's birthday made me forgot that I ever hated my school years.
What I'm grateful of:
I made it to my 16th year. It is a hell one of roller coaster life. There were some events that made me thought that I was going to die, but Alhamdulillah I didn't.
This year's birthday was the best birthday ever. Last year's birthday wasn't fun, was really un-fun, I hate it, it was the worst birthday ever. It was on Monday, the first day of school for another form 4 students, it was real bad. But this year made up for it. I celebrated my birthday morning at school with my beloved friends.
A small birthday surprise. Thanks to my beloved batchmates, JELO for singing happy birthday song to me when I really wanted to go pee at toilet. The story was, my friend, Fauziah asked me to accompany her to the toilet (which was so unlikely her) and when we reached the next class, she pulled me into the class. I thought she really wanted to go to the toilet, and I accompanied her because I also wanted to pee. But guess what? Almost all the form 5 girls were at the class and they started singing happy birthday to me. I was slightly segan and embarrassed because it brought attention from other students, but I was ecstatic nonetheless. I was speechless, thanks again JELO.
Delicious birthday cake. My birthday cake was 2 days late, not that I mind, at least I have my birthday cake this year. It was a very delicious chocolate cheesecake made by Ma. It was a thousand times better than the fruit cakes that almost every bakery at my town always made. I. Hate. Fruit. Cakes. Except if it has cheese/chocolate on it too.
Unfortunate events:
I need to run back home when I already arrived at school. Not that home was too far, but the need to run made me sweat in the morning of school, on my birthday. Just for a Chemistry work book that in the end I don't even use on that day. What a waste of time. What a waste of fat.
My experiment failed. In Chemistry class that day, we were supposed to do an experiment. It required a lot of apparatus and when I was setting up the things for experiment, I broke an apparatus. It was already retak to begin with, so it wasn't entirely my fault. Then, we were given a new apparatus and we continued setting up the experiment. It seemed like the unfortunate-ness was following me around because just when we started the experiment, I broke the very same apparatus. Wow Afifah Nabila. Wow.
Acting failure. If you know me, you'll know I'm never a good actress. I'm suck in acting. I'm always too nervous that when I act, I forget every dialogue I need to say. Or in some cases, I laugh too much when I'm acting. I did more than that during that day. I was supposed to act the role of Umi from Silir Daksina. The other actors and even me weren't really ready, we didn't even do any rehearsal for it even when it was for our ULPS (Ujian Lisan blah blah blah for SPM). And these things happened:
- I was too nervous to act the expression I practised hundred times before.
- My acting partner didn't have really much preparation and made up spontaneous dialogues. I wasn't really ready for that and it was hard to make up spontaneous dialogue.
- I stuttered and almost cursed in public during the acting.
So yeah, that was my 16th birthday. I was planning another kind of post for my birthday, but the post isn't finished yet. It is coming, but maybe after I get a little more free-er. Thanks to those who remembers my birthday and wishes me a lot of things. I really appreciate the wishes and I love all of you who's always supporting me! 💞
Love,
Pypaa. xoxo
2017 Goals | HAPPY NEW YEAR
1.01.2017
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| New year post featuring my favorite picture of 2016. |
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I wanted to post this post before 2017, but the WiFi won't cooperate with me. The WiFi didn't even let me to post a "hello 2017" to my Facebook account, what a wonderful thing the WiFi is. I can rant a lot of things about my WiFi here but this post is about the new year, so let's talk about the new year.
It's 0:22 AM when I'm writing this, and my family is sleeping safe and soundly and I can't believe it. It's 2017, and I'm still breathing even with the visible and invisible scars and pains, Alhamdulillah. I'm given another chance to type down some of my 2017 goals, although, let's be real here, some of them are unaccomplished 2016 goals. But starting a new year with new goals are far better than starting without any. At least you have this vision of who you want to be in the end of 2017.
"But what's the point of trying? I'm just going to fail," someone once said to me. And my response was simple: "So what? Who cares? If you fail, you fail. Big deal." Success involves failing first.
-Connor Franta, A Work of Progress
G#1: Beating procrastination.
If you don't know, 2017 is the year I will be taking my SPM. I can't believe it! I've been slacking a lot in form 4, I really need to increase my efforts if I want to increase my grade. One of my bad habits that always gives me a trouble is procrastination. I'm a big procrastinator, even if some of my friends don't believe me when I say this. I'm one of those people who studies a week before exam and for some subjects, the night before the exam. If I want to ace in my study, I need to throw any bad quality in me and try to replace it with the opposite, good one.
Luckily I stumbled upon Liyana's post a few days ago, and it helped me! I'm also going to use a planner next year since I'm a forgetful person.
G#2: Don't label and don't be affected by labels.
Our society is big in labeling people with stereotypes. And I am always too affected by it. I'm already anxious even without these ridiculous things existing in my life, so it really affected my anxiety level. One of my sufferings in 2016 is this, and it ruined a lot of things. So, in order to make the most of 2017, I need to face my anxiety and step one is: don't care about the labels people give to me.
"Who are you?
Answer: You are who you are in this given moment. Label-less. Limit-less."
Another Connor Franta's quote. I'll be saying this to myself every morning each day.
G#3: Take more chances to get out of my comfort zone.
If someone asks me what had I got from my anxiety, it is that I always missed out because I'm too scared of doing things. And one thing about me: I hate missing out. I hate opening my social media accounts and looking at my friends' pictures of them having fun without me. This might sounds very selfish, but I hate it when I'm missing out of these things, when I have been given a chance to join it, but I declined it because:
1. I think that I might look stupid if I join it, because I never do this thing.
2. I'm ugly today.
3. I'm too fat to do this.
4. What if those people that I will meet hate me?
5. What if I become a loner in that program?
and the ridiculous reasons went on and on. I missed out a lot, and I decided I don't want to miss out anymore. In order to do that, I need to stop thinking the negatives and see the positive side.
G#4: Focus.
I need to be more focused. It's my senior year, the last year of me being a secondary school student and if I learn something from years of being a student, it is that I need to stop playing around too much if I want to succeed in everything. I need to minimize my playing around and maximizing my focus towards things that are important. Playing around is okay, but always put the important things first.
G#5: Try to talk to someone when I think of something bad.
One of my mistakes growing up: I bottle up almost everything I feel. Never once that I thought that it would be good to talk about my feelings to people because I was too anxious that they'll judge me about how I feel. I had a few best friends back then, but we parted away. I didn't have anyone to talk to, I didn't trust my close friends and I couldn't talk to my Ma.
However, when things were going all wrong this year, I decided to talk about my feelings to my Ma. And that was a really brilliant decision, because when I started to open up, I became happier. I lost tons of weight when I was so unhappy, I went from 63 kg to 57 kg without even exercising and just by losing my appetite. That decision is proven to be brilliant when I gained weights after that and I simply became happier.
I learn that feelings that led to bad thoughts shouldn't be bottled up, and I will try not to do the very same thing again in 2017.
These are some of my goals for this year. My sole focus in 2017 is improving the qualities in me and trying to make the most of my life while living with my anxiety.
Happy New Year (again)! May 2017 be a wonderful, great and full of excitement and joy. I hope all of us will survive 2017 with strength and patience. I hope that we can accomplish all the goals that we set for this year! 🙆
Love,
Afifah Nabila. xo
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